Merriam-Webster seems to have found the bizarre controversy over President Donald Trump’s insistence that he was right that Hurricane Dorian was on a path to hit Alabama on September 1st. Trump continues to tweet about being right while the Washington Post is reporting that, despite Trump’s denial, he was the person who altered the hurricane path map with a Sharpie. So Merriam-Webster tweeted the definition of mumpsimus, or “A stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong.”
It appears that the term originated with an illiterate priest who accidentally said “mumpsimus” rather than “sumpsimus.” The stubborn priest refused to be corrected and continued to use the word to mean “we have taken” in Latin.
As if to prove the point, Trump continued to issue tweet after tweet saying that he was right after all. The Weather Service was forced to correct its own forecast information that contradicted Trump and a national security official was pushed forward to support Trump’s account as part of six-days of effort by the White House.
Trump also called in Fox News White House reporter John Roberts to convince him that Trump was right all along. Roberts later wrote a memo to Fox to describe the scene.
It is all . . . well. just too mumpsimus.